The purpose of this rule amendment is to provide for the further conservation of permit by modifying the spawning season closure for permit inside the Special Permit Zone (SPZ) established in rule 68B-35.006, Florida Administrative Code. In 2011, the Commission developed a suite of management measures for permit in response to staff and stakeholder concerns about the potential impacts of anglers targeting spawning aggregations in the Keys and a lack of permit-specific regulations in federal waters. In addition to a variety of other changes, the SPZ was established in south Florida with separate management measures for permit intended to manage this fishery as a catch and release/trophy fishery. These management measures included a spawning season closure in May, June, and July. Recently, stakeholders have expressed concerns that the spawning season closure for permit inside the SPZ is not providing the level of conservation to permit spawning aggregations as originally intended. Recent and on-going telemetry research confirms that spawning-size permit are visiting known multi-species spawning sites during the months of April through July. The effect of this rule will be to add the month of April to the existing May – July spawning season closure for permit inside the SPZ.